ANAHEIM – The Angels are playing lifelessly, are woefully uninteresting and are doomed to miss the postseason.

All of which, ultimately, is great for this sagging and sorry franchise.

And who says we never have anything positive to say about the Angels?

We’ll also point out that they embarrassed mighty Tampa Bay, 12-3, Wednesday, proving that they are still good enough not to stink every game.

But, trust us, the Angels needed this season and so did their fans, as painful as it has been to watch. And anyone who has seen these guys attempt to hit with runners in scoring position knows what pain looks like.

They needed a struggling summer and an idle October much more than they needed another playoff run dying short of the World Series.

Again eliminated by someone from the bigger, badder American League East? The Angels needed that like they need one more hitter in their lineup batting below .200.

That buzzing you hear is an alarm clock sounding, shaking awake this franchise and reminding its fans that the postseason is an achievement, not a right.

This game, by its design, eventually will break your heart. Well, this is a season during which baseball has broken the collective spirit around here, as well. But this isn’t such a terrible thing, once you get past all the runners stranded on third.

OK, so the Yankees probably learned a few lessons en route to winning last year’s World Series, too. But, remember, we’re being positive here, and the Angels will be better off in 2011 because of how off they’ve been in 2010.

Turns out they aren’t as deep as they thought, that Erick Aybar isn’t a leadoff hitter, that Brandon Wood isn’t an answer, that middle relief isn’t a strength and that Kendry Morales isn’t a ballerina.

Those are all things that had to be discovered – Sure, so Morales not being a ballerina was pretty much a given – and, unfortunately for the Angels, each was discovered negatively in the same season.

The good news is Arte Moreno has the money and the mindset to reload this roster and the Angels’ front office appears committed to making changes.

Things could be worse, like, for example, the situation facing the Dodgers, a team that might eventually have to resolve its differences in a public forum, by which we mean on The Jerry Springer Show.

We aren’t saying Mike Scioscia and the rest lacked motivation to make changes in the past, but we are saying the Angels’ decision-makers traditionally have been too in love with their own players.

At this point, there’s not a lot of love being expressed for the 2010 Angels. It has to be easier to switch pieces when those pieces all totaled aren’t nearly enough.

The Angels remain below .500 and began Wednesday with a 10-game deficit in the AL West, a deficit that thankfully doesn’t offer any false sense of being near contender status.

That’s one of the pitfalls with being in a small, four-team, abundantly winnable division. Since their 2002 title, the Angels, from our perspective, haven’t been nearly as close to winning again as they seem to believe.

Along the centerfield wall at Angel Stadium, there’s a sign marking the team’s division championships, five of the past six years, of course, being listed.

Honestly, though, who cares that “2010” won’t be added, unless it was going to arrive in the same shipment that included a bunch of new World Series rings?

After losing to Tampa Bay meekly 10-3 on Tuesday, Torii Hunter characterized his team as being “stuck with this disease,” the sadder news being that baseball has outlawed the most popular cure for lame offense.

It was an eerily quiet clubhouse, the only thing missing being the headstones. An hour later, on the team’s flagship radio station, host Jeff Biggs, as optimistic a Halo fan as exists, called watching the Angels “excruciating.”

So the excruciatingly diseased Angels returned to the field Wednesday…and were tied with the Rays for one entire pitch.

John Jaso hit Dan Haren’s second offering into the seats in right, and the crowd would have groaned had something larger than a boy scout troop been in attendance.

Can’t blame the folks for staying away, given the Angels’ recent play and the fact it was 91 degrees at first pitch.

One day after presenting their faithful with fleece blankets in a promotional giveaway on an 84-degree night, the Angels mercifully chose not to stage space-heater day Wednesday.

Haren quickly righted himself and the offense suddenly burst to life. Three hours later, the Angels were winners and one game closer to the end of their season.

But more than that, they were one game closer to the start of their rebound.

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